Mary Babette Hecht (December 31, 1912 – March 17, 1982) was the heiress to the Hecht Department Stores chain.Partner Jane G. English
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Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum
Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida
Mary Babette Hecht (December 31, 1912 – March 17, 1982) was the heiress to the Hecht Department Stores chain.
She was born in Baltimore, MD, the daughter of Moses Samuel Hecht (1873-1954) and Blanche Hartman (1879-1951). She married Harry A. Oppenhunst Schloss, Jr (1909-1996) and had a child, Harry O. Schloss, 3rd (1940-1997), but then she amicably divorced, and ended her life in a pink marble tomb—fashioned after Egypt’s Sphinx—next to her friend Jane G. English.
Hecht donated $4.2 million to the University of Miami's athletics program. The gift funds scholarships for football student-athletes who are part of a program that has captured five national championships and sent a multitude of players to the NFL. Mary Hecht was a passionate supporter of her favorite team, the Miami Hurricanes, and now her generous legacy will help future generations of student-athletes fulfill their dream to get a great education and play for the U, said UM President Donna E. Shalala. The Mary B. Hecht Fund is the largest endowment ever for intercollegiate football scholarships at UM and came just as the University was poised to begin the 2011 college football season under new head coach Al Golden. This historical gift will continue to support our vision of excellence in academics and athletics at the University of Miami, said Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst.
Mary Hecht also donated the East End land in Cherry Grove to be raffled off for the benefit of the doctor’s fund. Stephan Cole had bought what turned out to be the winning ticket in the name of his dog, and when the dog “died intestate,” Stephan sent Captain Hawkins to offer the land to the Eberhardts for $5,000, an outlandish price because Hawkins said it was only worth $800. Mary Hecht, a jewish woman, was a very objectionable woman who in the 1950s owned an imposing cottage on the bay with its own generator in which she gave frequent and noisy parties. Even though most of Hecht’s alleged faults fit antisemitic stereotypes, most Grovers attributed them to her own personal failings or else spoke less frankly than rude Willy Warren: I only realized Mary Hecht was Jewish after two summers of research because of a throw-away comment by Ann Leone—as an Italian among the WASPs, she was much more self-conscious and forthright about ethnicity.
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